Telephus, who was a Greek, appears to have been a Youth of noble birth--being mentioned as such in the Ode to PHYLLIS, which will be found farther on amongst these Paraphrases. From that to LYDIA, so well known, and so often translated, we learn that he had a beautiful form, and was much admired by the Roman Ladies.
2: The Translator was doubtful about using that word, till she recollected it in the gravest of Pope's Poems,
“Destroy all creatures for thy sport and _gust_; Then cry, If Man's unhappy God's unjust.” ESSAY ON MAN.
EXHORTING HER TO BE CONTENT WITH A FRUGAL SACRIFICE.
My Phidyle, retir'd in shady wild, If thou thy virgin hands shalt suppliant raise, If primal fruits are on thy altars pil'd, And incense pure thy duteous care conveys, To sooth the LARES, when the moon adorns, With their first modest light, her taper horns;
And if we pierce the throat of infant swine, A frugal victim, not the baleful breath Of the moist South shall blast our tender vine; Nor shall the lambs sink in untimely death When the unwholesome gales of Autumn blow, And shake the ripe fruit from the bending bough.
Let snowy Algidum's wide vallies feed, Beneath their stately holme, and spreading oak, Or the rich herbage of Albania's mead, The Steer, whose blood on _lofty_ Shrines shall smoke! Red may it stain the Priest's uplifted knife, And glut the higher Powers with costly life!
The rosemary and myrtle's simple crown Thou on our household Gods, with decent care Art gently placing; and they will not frown; No _stern_ demand is theirs, that we prepare Rich Flocks, and Herds, at Duty's solemn call, And, in the pomp of slaughter, bid them fall.
O! if an _innocent_ hand approach the shrine, The little votive cake it humbly lays, The crackling salt, that makes the altar shine, Flung on the cheerful sacrificial blaze, To the mild LARES shall be grateful found As the proud Steer, with all his garlands crown'd.
Not he, O MUSE! whom thy auspicious eyes In his primeval hour beheld, Shall victor in the Isthmian Contest rise; Nor o'er the long-resounding field Impetuous steeds his kindling wheels shall roll, Gay in th' Olympic Race, and foremost at the goal.
Nor in the Capitol, triumphant shown, The victor-laurel on his brow, For Cities storm'd, and vaunting Kings o'erthrown;-- But Tibur's streams, that warbling flow, And groves of fragrant gloom, resound his strains, Whose sweet Æolian grace high celebration gains.